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Just Cool Cars: Biggest road beast you'll ever see

SEASIDE, Calif. -- If there's one vehicle that shook the Monterey Car Week to its core -- literally -- it would have to a 30-foot, six-inch two seater spitting out 1,600 horsepower from its silvery truck-style

We loved seeing this monster so much that we had to bring it back for another look.

If there's one vehicle that shook the Monterey Car Week in California to its core -- literally -- it would have to be this 1,600-horsepower beast.

The Packard Royal, as the mega-car is called, is 30-feet long and was built around a gigantic engine that came out of a World War II-era PT boat, says its creator, Rodney Rucker of Winslow, Ariz. Firing it up in a parking lot at a hotel here, the engine roared and fire belched from the pipes.

Everything about the Royal comes in big or long:

•It took 12,000 man hours to build.

•Total investment is estimated at more than $1 million.

•It was five years in the making.

It looks like a truck but actually it's a car: Onlookers admire the 30 foot long Packard Royal V12 at the McCall Motorworks Revival held at the Monterey Jet Center in Monterey, Calif. Dan MacMedan USA TODAY

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Why make the show car? "There's no rhyme or reason," says Rucker. "We (were) just going to build something that no one else has."

He is making a nice business, however, out of making use of old Packard PT boat engines. The engine is so powerful that in its limited road time so far, the Royal hit 80 miles an hour in second gear.

Rucker and his team had it ready just in time for the Monterey Week of Cars, where it made its debut at an opening night ceremony. Designer Chip Foose assisted in the design, Rucker says. The body is handcrafted polished aluminum.

"It's the closest thing to a P-51 Mustang (fighter) on the street," Rucker says.